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FBI arrests 'Most Wanted' woman

Evidence found in M.I.T. graduate Aafia Siddiqui's purse suggests she was plotting assassinations.

A U.S. trained scientist wanted for questioning in connection with terrorism cases has been shipped to New York and charged with attempted murder after a shootout with her would-be questioners following her arrest in Afghanistan last month, the U.S. Attorney in New York said. Possible "treasure trove" of intelligence

Aafia Siddiqui was detained after a shootout with questioners. According to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney, the woman was scheduled to be arraigned before a federal magistrate in Manhattan Tuesday. The FBI had sought her for questioning in connection with assisting key al Qaeda operatives now detained at Guantanamo Bay.

The day after her arrest by Afghani authorities on July 17th, Siddiqui was shot twice in the torso, U.S. officials said, when she grabbed a U.S. soldier's M-4 carbine and attempted to shoot another officer as a team of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents prepared to question her.

A U.S. interpreter threw off her aim when he pushed the gun. She then was shot twice with a 9 millimeter handgun, authorities said. According to the US Government, despite her wounds, she shouted that she "wanted to kill Americans," and struggled with her captors before they subdued her. According to a joint press release issued together with the New York City Police Department, Siddiqui was arrested outside the Ghazni governor's compound by Ghazni Province Afghanistan National Police.

The ANP officers "questioned Siddiqui, regarded her as suspicious, and searched her handbag. In it, they found numerous documents describing the creation of explosives, as well as excerpts from the Anarchist's Arsenal."

The papers also "included descriptions of various landmarks in the United States, including in New York City." Siddiqui had been wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with allegedly assisting key Al Qaeda operatives in the past.

According to the FBI and U.S. Attorney, on July 18, "a party of United States personnel, including two FBI special agents, a United States Army Warrant Officer, a United States Army Captain, and United States military interpreters, arrived at the Afghan facility where Siddiqui was being held. The personnel entered a second floor meeting room -- unaware that Siddiqui was being held there, unsecured, behind a curtain."

"The Warrant Officer took a seat and placed his United States Army M-4 rifle on the floor next to the curtain. Shortly after the meeting began, the Captain heard a woman yell from the curtain and, when he turned, saw Siddiqui holding the Warrant Officer's rifle and pointing it directly at the Captain."

Siddiqui said, "May the blood of [unintelligible] be directly on your [unintelligible, possibly head or hands]." The interpreter seated closest to Siddiqui lunged at her and pushed the rifle away as Siddiqui pulled the trigger. Siddiqui fired at least two shots but no one was hit. The Warrant Officer returned fire with a 9 mm service pistol and fired approximately two rounds at Siddiqui's torso, hitting her at least once."

According to a government statement on Siddiqui issued a few years ago, Siddiqui allegedly aided Majid Khan in obtaining documents to re-enter the United States. The New York Times reports "the statement said Mr. Khan was directed by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief organizer of the Sept. 11 plot, to conduct research on poisoning reservoirs and blowing up gas stations in the United States. The statement also said Mr. Khan had delivered money for terrorist attacks to another Qaeda operative and discussed a plan to smuggle explosives into the United States."
Described on her Wikipedia page as a 36-year-old MIT graduate and a Pakistani national, Siddique, even as the government asserted it wanted her for questioning was suspected by human rights groups as being among the "ghost prisoners" held in secret prisons maintained in the past by U.S. intelligence agencies.

something very fishy about this whole story...this one really depends on where you get your news.

Here it is first the US was saying she was dead, and when pressed about her existence they were real tight lipped...mind you, they have been training her and she has top level security clearance.

Her family and friends thought she was dead. Some even are speculating that she was removed by the US government themselves and sent to some overseas torture holding cell for things she may know (whatever that mean)

then all of a sudden she turns up as a stark raving mad woman, with a rifle, fighting off men in Afganistan? WTF??? sounds like a break out to me....

much more to this story....guess we will find out in 50 years when the "documents are unsealed".

WASHINGTON, Aug 3: Five years after her mysterious disappearance in Karachi, the FBI has finally conceded that an MIT-trained Pakistani neuroscientist is alive and is in US custody in Afghanistan.

Aafia Siddiqui, 36, disappeared with her three children while visiting her parents’ home in Karachi in March 2003, around the same time the FBI announced that it wanted to question her over her alleged links to Al Qaeda.

Her family’s lawyer Elaine Whitfield Sharp said she believed recent media reports about Mrs Siddiqui’s incarceration increased pressure on the US and Pakistani authorities to divulge more information.

“I don’t believe that they just found Aafia,” she said. “I believe that she was there all along.”

The fate of her three young, American-born children is still unknown.

Before her disappearance, Mrs Siddiqui lived in a Boston suburb of Roxbury and studied at Brandeis University as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In a 2006 report, Amnesty International listed Mrs Siddiqui as among a number of “disappeared” suspects in the war on terrorism. On July 6, 2007, AI listed Mrs Siddiqui as a possible CIA “secret detainee”, although she was still on the FBI’s Seeking Information - Terrorism list. Late last week, Mrs Siddiqui’s photo still appeared on the FBI’s list of people wanted for questioning.

Since no charges were ever filed against her, human rights groups treated her case as that of “extrajudicial detention”, although no government ever claimed detaining her.

Even the FBI does not mention any charges in the notice seeking information about her. “Although the FBI has no information indicating this individual is connected to specific terrorist activities, the FBI would like to locate and question this individual,” says the notice.

The “gray lady of Bagram”: On July 7, a British journalist Yvonne Ridley told a news conference in Islamabad that a Pakistani woman had been held in solitary confinement for years at the Bagram US base near Kabul. The identity of this prisoner remains unconfirmed. She has been nicknamed the “gray lady of Bagram”. Ms Ridley, however, speculated that she was Aafia Siddiqui.

Moazzam Begg and several other former captives also have reported that a female prisoner, prisoner 650, was held in Bagram. The former captives claim that she has lost her sanity and cries all the time.

Although it is still not clear if the “gray lady of Bagram” is Aafia Siddiqui, her family’s attorney told reporters on Friday that the FBI had finally conceded that Mrs Siddiqui is in US custody.

“It has been confirmed by the FBI that Aafia Siddiqui is alive,” said Ms Sharp, who said she spoke to an FBI official on Thursday.

“She is injured but alive, and she is in Afghanistan.”

For five years, US and Pakistani authorities denied knowing her whereabouts. But human rights groups and Mrs Siddiqui’s relatives had long suspected that she had been captured in Karachi and secretly taken into custody.

On Thursday, an FBI official visited Mrs Siddiqui’s brother in Houston to deliver the news that she was alive and in custody, Ms Sharp said.

FBI officials, however, would not say who was holding her or reveal the fate of her children.

“If she’s in US custody, they want to know where she is,” Ms Sharp said. “Who has got her? And does she need medical care?”

The FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment.

US military documents declassified in recent years suggest that Mrs Siddiqui is suspected of having ties to several key terrorism suspects being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

She is believed to have links to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and allegedly arranged travel documents for another suspected terrorist.

Papers in Guantanamo Bay also indicate that she married Ali Abd Al Aziz Ali, an alleged Al Qaeda facilitator who intended to blow up petrol stations or poison water reservoirs in the United States.

The three men were among 14 high-value suspects brought to Guantanamo Bay in 2006 after years of secret detention in CIA prisons in Eastern Europe.

something very fishy about this whole story...this one really depends on where you get your news.

Here it is first the US was saying she was dead, and when pressed about her existence they were real tight lipped...mind you, they have been training her and she has top level security clearance.

Her family and friends thought she was dead. Some even are speculating that she was removed by the US government themselves and sent to some overseas torture holding cell for things she may know (whatever that mean)

then all of a sudden she turns up as a stark raving mad woman, with a rifle, fighting off men in Afganistan? WTF??? sounds like a break out to me....

much more to this story....guess we will find out in 50 years when the "documents are unsealed".

Agree on the smelly story. Also why are the quote marks where they are?

That's usually what they say when they go back in history to discover the truth.

"we finally understand what happened 50 years ago because the documents have been unsealed now".

In the first story. I thought it was for each time someone was quoted but then I saw: "The Warrant Officer took a seat and placed his United States Army M-4 rifle on the floor next to the curtain. Shortly after the meeting began, the Captain heard a woman yell from the curtain and, when he turned, saw Siddiqui holding the Warrant Officer's rifle and pointing it directly at the Captain." - In other words it may not have happened that way. Wink, wink ...

The News of Pakistan reports that Siddiqui's health is very frail, over and above her recent gun-shot wound.[24] The report quoted concerns of the Co-chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Iqbal Haider, who felt the images of Siddiqui showing that her health was been so badly damaged her life was in imminent risk. The report stated that:

one of her kidneys had been removed while in captivity;
her teeth had been removed;
her nose had been broken, and improperly reset;
that her recent gun-shot wound had been incompetently dressed, was oozing blood, leaving her clothes soaked with blood.
her hands and feet were dirty, and she smelled bad.
An August 11, 2008 Reuters report stated that she had appeared at her hearing in a wheelchair, and that her lawyers pleaded with the judge to make sure she received medical care.[26] Reuters reports that Elizabeth Fink, one of her lawyers, told the Judge:

"She has been here, judge, for one week and she has not seen a doctor, even though they (U.S. authorities) know she has been shot."

The Reuters report stated that Aafia believed she had lost part of her intestines.[26] Her lawyers told the judge they believed she was still suffering from internal bleeding and a strange aversion to soap and water. According to Reuters:

Lawyers for Siddiqui said last week she appeared confused and did not know where she had been, except to claim that she was held captive by unknown authorities in a small room.

Christopher LaVigne, one of the Prosecutors, justified withholding medical care because she was a "high-security risk".[26] The Prosecution was ordered to make sure she was seen by a doctor within 24 hours by Judge Robert Pitman.

In the first story. I thought it was for each time someone was quoted but then I saw: "The Warrant Officer took a seat and placed his United States Army M-4 rifle on the floor next to the curtain. Shortly after the meeting began, the Captain heard a woman yell from the curtain and, when he turned, saw Siddiqui holding the Warrant Officer's rifle and pointing it directly at the Captain." - In other words it may not have happened that way. Wink, wink ...

ok, I got you...

at least in the old days, the FBI actually put some thought into their stories. Today it seem they just take a plot from some cheesy Hollywood movie and try to sell it to the public.

"Bin Laden was found dead in a cave, apparently from a suicide by taking prescription tylenol who blew up the Twin Towers for being reject by a white American gal who was in the Saudi Arabian sorority Allah Gamma Koran while studying overseas. Apparently she told him she wouldn’t fuck him if he was the last camel jockey on earth.